14 February 2018

Darvish: Worst 100 MM Free Agent Pitcher Deal Ever?

The first 100 MM contract signed by a free agent pitcher was Kevin Brown before the 1999 season, which he played at 34. It was scheduled to take him to age 41 and included many perks, such as private jet flights and what not. It was shocking at the time. It would be shocking now. If you inflated his deal to what free agents are currently getting paid, his deal would be equivalent to a 7/307 contract. That is a 44 MM salary each year. So, yeah, that is a stunning deal. Yu Darvish's 6/126 taken back in time would be around 6/43 in 1999.

In other words, 100 MM means different things over the years as revenue in the game increases. Still, it marks a major bright line for players to cross. Only twelve free agent pitchers, including Brown and Darvish, has signed deals passing the 100 MM mark. When Jake Arrieta inks his name, he might make it a lucky 13.

1st Yr

Yrs

Total $

David Price

2016

7

217

Max Scherzer

2015

7

210

Zack Greinke

2016

6

206.5

CC Sabathia

2009

7

161

Jon Lester

2015

6

155

Johnny Cueto

2016

6

130

Barry Zito

2007

7

126

Mike Hampton

2001

8

121

Cliff Lee

2011

5

120

Jordan Zimmermann

2016

5

110

Kevin Brown

1999

7

105

Yu Darvish

2018

6

126

While the talk about Yu Darvish as being a great bargain for the Cubs has been the main story line this past week, I thought it at first to be a weird statement. Darvish arrived in MLB with incredible promise and a dizzying array of pitches. He pitched very well, but never really transcended the scene to become a feared ace. He has been largely restricted to that frame of mind about what if he could hit the next level. That kind of talk feels peculiar now that next season will be his age 31 season. Add on to that how hittable he was last year and the persistent search to find one easy trick to get him back to where we all thought he was going.

So what I did was compare all of the pitchers in this 100 MM FA club. I added up the bWAR they accumulated over their previous six years and their previous three years. Additionally, I did a simple count of seasons in the past six years where they accumulated more than four bWAR. These are simple metrics, but metrics that give a decent indication of how good a pitcher was and how often he was quite good.

6 yr bWAR

3 yr bWAR

>4 bWAR

Kevin Brown

33.6

23.6

5

David Price

27.9

13.4

4

Barry Zito

27.5

10.5

4

Zack Greinke

26

17.5

2

CC Sabathia

24.2

17.7

3

Jon Lester

24.2

8.3

4

Max Scherzer

23.5

16.9

3

Johnny Cueto

22.5

11.7

2

Cliff Lee

20.8

17.1

3

Jordan Zimmermann

19.4

12.1

2

Mike Hampton

19.3

14.8

2

Yu Darvish

19.3

5.8

1

Can we just take a moment and reflect how amazing Kevin Brown was and how we all basically ignored how amazing he was or perhaps that we really on focused on him when he was a 40 year old Yankee pitcher? How is that guy not in the Hall of Fame?

Anyway, what we see is that Darvish is tied for the lowest 6 yr bWAR tally, clearly lower in the 3 yr tally (and would be at best second lowest if he did not lose a whole season to Tommy John), and the only pitcher with only one season above a four bWAR.

At first blush, it looks like Darvish is leading the pack as the worst 100 MM contract recipient, but we still have that change in revenue issue. To look at that, I decided to utilize the BORAS model that we use to project free agent contracts. This works by looking at recent performances and project salary terms based on that performance. This way we can strip out the differences in pay over time and compare that to adjusted 2018 earnings.

2018
AAV*

BORAS

Diff

Barry Zito

24.4

16.4

49%

Yu Darvish

21.0

17.3

21%

Zack Greinke

34.4

28.7

20%

Mike Hampton

29.5

24.7

19%

Kevin Brown

43.8

40.4

8%

Jon Lester

25.8

24.2

7%

Jordan Zimmermann

22.0

20.8

6%

Max Scherzer

30.0

28.5

5%

Johnny Cueto

21.7

21.4

1%

David Price

31.0

31.4

-1%

CC Sabathia

27.3

35.0

-22%

Cliff Lee

24.0

32.5

-26%

There have really only been two deals that looked like great signings at the time according to BORAS: CC Sabathia with the Yankees and Cliff Lee with the Phillies. BORAS considers both to be well below the expected market value. On the over-committed end, Zack Greinke comes in third place. Of course, this probably overstates the overpay as much of his deal was deferred, which decreases the cost. Deferments are not easy to find for all of the deals, so I simply assumed that they did not exist.

Darvish ranks as second worst. As an overpay of 21%, according to BORAS. Some will note that this is due to BORAS' inability to differentiate between time lost due to injury and simply being unable to accrue bWAR during terrible performances. And that may be the rationale. If we assume that 2016 was increased from 100.1 IP to 180 IP at the same WAR rate and 2015 went from 0 IP to 180 IP with the 2016/2017 average WAR rate, then BORAS would estimate a 5/108 deal (21.7 AAV). That is pretty close to what he got. The other pitchers on the list did not have to deal with that situation. If we assume that Tommy John's mean nothing and performance is projectable, then that places Darvish on the other end in the same grouping as Johnny Cueto and David Price. This would represent what BORAS would consider an on-market value. In other words, not a bargain.

This leaves us with the answer as Barry Zito. His deal awarded him what BORAS considered a 49% overpay. This off season only one other free agent pitcher may see a 100 MM deal: Jake Arrieta. BORAS projects him as a 17.3 MM AAV just like Yu Darvish. He would need a deal paying him 25.8 MM to be on par with Zito. That seems unlikely to me, but supposedly his agent is trying to push that 25 MM number. Arrieta would have the far lowest 6 year bWAR with 18.8, but a very respectable 14 bWAR over the past three seasons.

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